Picture Flowers

Happy May! My favorite month. My birthday month. My going to OCNJ month. My family BBQ month. My everything turning green and blooming month. And this year it is also my #PictureFlowers with Tracey Clark month. Day one had us seeking out an as-yet-unopened flower, so naturally I captured one of my favorites: a peony. You know you will be seeing more of these by the end of the month 🩷😍🌸

Day 2: I have a few vases, but I only use them on the rare occasion that I have a big bouquet. Mostly I am a wildflowers in old bottles kind of girl

Day 3: Appreciating the details of a dandelion from an up-close and personal vantage point.

Day 4: a "random blooming things from the yard" flatlay.

Day 5: I had nothing in my yard to shoot for today's prompt, but the local supermarket really came through with its outdoor display of these streaky hibiscus flowers.

Day 6: A "studio portrait" of an azalea blossom in a vintage coke bottle.

Day 7: This was a difficult prompt for me, because I don't have a green thumb. I'm lucky to have anything around here that blooms at all. My tool of the trade? Scissors, so I can bring the outside pretties in once in a while.

Day 8: I've run out of flowers that aren't weeds.

Day 9: If my peonies were in bloom they'd have been perfect for this prompt. But they're not quite ready yet, so once again ShopRite's Mother's Day flower sale display to the rescue 😁

Day 10: Lookin' prickly

Day 11: I don't know what I like better about this bottle in front of this window at this time of day: the lovely long shadow it casts, or the way the glass seems to glow.

Day 12: I am usually all about the simple reusable gift bag these days, but something made me want to buy actual wrapping paper for the most recent gift I gave. I found this pretty design, covered in bold peonies. Or maybe roses. I'm not really an expert in these things 🙂

Day 13: In my quest to find a window box, I drove away from the #ocnj boardwalk and ocean front, to find one of the quaint older homes that's been here forever.

Day 14: We went to Corsons Inlet in search of wildflowers for this prompt. We saw mostly teeny tiny things, and I would have settled for those, but then a single bush full of beach roses came into view.

Day 15: If I were throwing a dinner party (and my peonies were not in season, and I couldn't get a bunch of zinnias from a local farm) I would probably be decorating with grocery store gerbera daisies.

Day 16: I ignored the prompt because these are the only flowers I saw all day, and I couldn't make the angles work 😁

Day 17: I'm home from my trip, and my peonies have started to bloom! The biggest force of nature evidently having an influence on them is gravity 😁

Day 18: It took me so long to get outside with my camera, all of the bees had gone home for the night. So how about an image illustrating the symbiotic ant/peony relationship instead?

Day 19: A honeysuckle couple sits on the hill in their back yard watching the fireworks. That's what it looks like to me, anyway 😄

Day 20: Today's prompt was meant for a sunny day, which I don't have, but I do have this lovely kitchen window light.

Day 21: I confess I don't care for this prompt. I don't like to make things blurry on purpose, as a rule. But I did it anyway. I set a tiny aperture so I could get a slow shutter speed, and I waited for the wind to blow this lily all over the place.

Day 22: You could get lost in those luscious peony petals 🩷

Day 23: The day where I resort to a fake flower because I give up 😂 ( I tried, really, but I needed "interesting" colors, and couldn't come up with anything more interesting than a mint green crocheted flower you could never see in nature.)

Day 24: Little yellow flowers in the grass become these imposter wild strawberries.

Day 25: When peonies give up, they do so in spectacular fashion.

Day 26: (I'm losing steam, but we're almost done!) Whenever there are flowers blooming in my yard, I feel the urge to bring them inside to brighten my desk and my work day.

Day 27: peonies before they go *poof*.

Day 28: nature is reclaiming the Little Tykes house in the back yard.

Day 29: I took myself out to a garden today and saw a bunch of new-to-me flowers, including this "giant onion" 😄

Day 30: I wasn't really in the mood for a selfie today, but the prompt said otherwise, so here I am, though the real star of the show today is this Trader Joe's peony which smells sooooo lovely 🪷

Day 31: Last prompt! We're supposed to buy ourselves flowers, but I already did that a few days ago. They're finally opening up nicely, though, so that's a nice gift 🙂